Affirmative Action in Universities. Did it just end? Is that a good thing?

[AgnosticBoy]

Watching the news yesterday, I saw breaking news flash across my screen regarding affirmative action being struck down by SCOTUS. I rarely go by headlines because they tend to exaggerate or use hyperbole to grab attention. Went digging around the internet for any articles on that decision. Found some articles that seem to indicate that SCOTUS didn't strike down affirmative action entirely but other articles made no distinction. So that will be part of the debate here.

Here's an article that reports the SCOTUS decision as a blanket ban (the part in green font leaves door open for a different interpretation):

WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court on Thursday struck down affirmative action programs at the University of North Carolina and Harvard in a major victory for conservative activists, ending the systematic consideration of race in the admissions process.

The court ruled that both programs violate the Equal Protection Clause of the Constitution and are therefore unlawful. The vote was 6-3 in the UNC case and 6-2 in the Harvard case, in which liberal Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson was recused.

The court effectively overturned the 2003 ruling Grutter v. Bollinger, in which it said race could be considered as a factor in the admissions process because universities had a compelling interest in maintaining diverse campuses. In doing so, the court scrapped decades of precedent, including a ruling dating to 1978, that upheld a limited consideration of race in university admissions to combat historic discrimination against Black people and other minority groups.

In the majority opinion, Chief Justice John Roberts did not explicitly say the former precedents were overruled, but in a concurring opinion, conservative Justice Clarence Thomas, only the second Black justice to be appointed to the court, said the Grutter case was, "for all intents and purposes, overruled."

Roberts wrote that both programs "lack sufficiently focused and measurable objectives warranting the use of race, unavoidably employ race in a negative manner, involve racial stereotyping, and lack meaningful end points."

The ruling is likely to have repercussions far beyond higher education, including on K-12 schools, and it puts increased pressure on colleges to come up with workable race-neutral programs that would foster racial diversity. The decision could also lead to future challenges to racial diversity programs used by employers, as similar arguments could be made under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act, which prohibits discrimination in employment.

Source: NBC News


For Debate:
1. Does Scotus decision do away with affirmative action entirely or partially?
2. Is affirmative action good policy for higher education schools? Is it necessary?

 

[AgnosticBoy]

My immediate reaction is that I am very surprised at those who say that the Constitution is color-blind in response to affirmative action. I assume that it's mostly conservatives. It seems to disregard the long history race-based discrimination in this country. What I question is are if those assert color-blind constitution have any plans that would stop discrimination. For instance, if we do away with affirmative action because it takes into account "color" or race (which is contrary to color-blind laws), then is there a way to make sure that minorities are not at a disadvantage? Do these conservatives even care about that? For now, I don't get the sense that they do but I'm open to changing my mind.

More to be said after I do more research or get some more feedback from others on the forum.

 

[AgnosticBoy]

7/3/2023 to add poll about independents and the SCOTUS decision...

Is affirmative action good policy for higher education schools? Is it necessary?

I found a 2022 poll that shows the majority of Americans are against race being a factor for college admission which was surprising to me:

About eight-in-ten White adults (79%) say race or ethnicity should not factor into admission decisions. By comparison, 68% of Hispanic adults say this, as do about six-in-ten Asian American (63%) and Black (59%) adults. And while 87% of Republicans say race or ethnicity should not be a factor in admissions, that share falls to 62% among Democrats.

Source: Pew Research

BUT, at least the majority of Americans value racial diversity in colleges, some 59% of Americans think it is important:

Source: YouGov.com

And here is information on Independents...

A little more than half of Americans -- 52% -- approve of the U.S. Supreme Court decision on restricting the use of race as a factor in college admissions, while 32% disapprove and 16% saying they don't know.

A majority of Republicans (75%) and independents (58%) approve of the ruling, while a distinct minority of Democrats approve (26%).

Source: ABC News



Even the most liberal state in the US, California, banned affirmative action for colleges/universities:

Since 1996, 10 states have banned the use of race in public university admissions, including California, Michigan and Florida, according to the American Educational Research Association.

Source: ABC news
]
This information shows me that Americans view racial diversity as being important, but they don't think that "affirmative action" is the way to bring that about.

I would at least hope that all sides agree on the goal to give anyone of any race a fair chance of entering a college of their choice. If we do away with affirmative action then we need to find an alternative policy that would work, and be able to monitor the results of such policy to ensure that it is working as intended.

In another post I want to list all of the pros and cons to affirmative action and then I'll build my own position based on that.

 

[Multicolored Lemur]

This information shows me that Americans view racial diversity as being important, but they don't think that "affirmative action" is the way to bring that about.

(1) I wish we as a society could embrace and even work this tension in a productive way.

(2) There’s at least a little traction right now for looking at these so-called legacy admissions [parent or other family member used to be student]. But since this is a major source of fund-raising, realistically, come on, none of us should expect too much in this area.

(3) We as a society worship college much more than we should.

(4) The professions are almost like landed estates in the England of old. Once someone has a degree, yes, they need to do solid day-in and day-out work, but they’re way ahead of the curve as far as a good job. I take a minority position that the professions should be more “porous” than they currently are. For example, it should probably be a fairly normal thing for people to move from nursing into doctoring. [such-and-such months of experience equal one year of medical school, perhaps with a test added]

(5) @AgnosticBoy , I think you had a post that intelligence is multi-factor instead of the single number of intelligence quotient. And so building on this myself, maybe surgeons should primarily be chosen on manual dexterity and responsible work behavior, with the person merely good enough in math and verbal [in other words, people who wouldn’t have a dream of a chance getting into medical school in our current system].

 

[AgnosticBoy]

1. Does Scotus decision do away with affirmative action entirely or partially?

Based on two articles, I would say that the recent Supreme Court decision renders affirmative action for higher education non-effective, although there is this loophole:

To that end, Harvard leadership noted in a Thursday statement they’d comply with part of the Court’s decision allowing them to consider “an applicant’s discussion of how race affected his or her life, be it through discrimination, inspiration, or otherwise.”

Source: Politico

The opinion claims the court was not expressly overturning prior cases authorizing race-based affirmative action, and suggested that how race has affected an applicant’s life can still be part of how their application is considered.

Source: CNN

I understand this to mean that colleges can look at "discrimination" as a factor when considering college applications.

(2) There’s at least a little traction right now for looking at these so-called legacy admissions [parent or other family member used to be student]. But since this is a major source of fund-raising, realistically, come on, none of us should expect too much in this area.

Yes. Read about those earlier... Many say that legacy admissions disproportionately benefit upper-class White people. Colleges might be able to wiggle themselves out of that if they say any alumni, of any race, can have their family use that process.

 

[Multicolored Lemur]

I understand this to mean that colleges can look at "discrimination" as a factor when considering college applications.

And they could look at the number of obstacles a person has overcome or is in the process of overcoming. But there’d be all kinds of really difficult cases this would not address.

For example—

Let’s say someone has lived through years of sexual abuse by a family member, maybe even their Dad or Step Dad. And the really difficult part is that often the Mother knows or suspects and chooses not to do something about it. Maybe she’s a stay-at-home parent or has a much lower paying job than the husband. Maybe she never dreamed she’d have to address this, and she simply does not have the skill set, etc.

And this actually is a point on which Pastor Joel Osteen is mistaken, or at least woefully incomplete. In a sermon about forgiveness, he was trying to find the most difficult cases, and he said it’s a gift to yourself even to forgive someone who has sexually abused you. No, from what I’ve read, the most difficult thing is to forgive the parent who was complicit and who was passive and went along, when they should have been active and done something constructive.

And no, of course someone is not going to want to tell this to college admissions [even though, sadly, sexual abuse is a lot more common than we like to think it is]